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Historicizing natural hazards and human-induced landscape transformation in a tropical mountainous environment in Africa: narratives from elderly citizens
Get PDFStudying natural hazards in the context of human-induced landscape transformation is complex, especially in regions with limited information. The narratives of the elderly can play a role in filling these knowledge gaps at the multi-decadal timescale. Here, we build upon a citizen-based elderly approach to understanding natural hazard patterns and landscape transformation in a tropical mountainous environment, the Kigezi Highlands (SW Uganda). We engaged 98 elderly citizens (>70 years old) living in eight small watersheds with different characteristics. Through interviews and focus group discussions, we reconstructed historical timelines and used participatory mapping to facilitate the interview process. We cross-checked the information of the elderly citizens with historical aerial photographs, archives, and field visits. Our results show that major land use/cover changes are associated with a high population increase over the last 80 years. We also evidence an increase in reported natural hazard events such as landslides and flash floods from the 1940s until the 1980s. Then, we notice a stabilization in the number of hazard events per decade, although the two most impacted decades (1980s and 2000s) stand out. Despite this new information, an increase in natural hazard frequency due to land use/cover change cannot yet be quantitatively validated, especially when the probable modulator effect of climate variability is considered. Nevertheless, the increase in the exposure of a vulnerable population to natural hazards is clear, and population growth together with poor landscape management practices are the key culprits that explain this evolution. This study demonstrates the added value of historical narratives in terms of understanding natural hazards in the context of environmental changes. This insight is essential for governments and non-governmental organizations for the development of policies and measures for disaster risk reduction that are grounded in the path dependence of local realities
A continuous feast of bramble: Rubus fruticosus agg. is a key cross‐seasonal dietary resource for a fallow deer population
Get PDFContext: Deer (Cervidae) populations are increasing in many global regions, leading to concerns about their impacts on temperate forests. Advancing evidence‐based management requires a detailed understanding of the dietary habits of deer and how these are shaped by resource availability. Methodology: We studied the diet of fallow deer (Dama dama) in North Wales (United Kingdom), using faecal DNA metabarcoding. Samples were collected monthly from three woodlands during 2019–2021. Tree surveys and seasonal ground flora surveys were conducted in these woodlands and seven additional woodlands. Preference analyses were used to assess the consumption of plant taxa relative to their availability. Results: The fallow deer consumed high proportions of bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg.) across the seasons, especially in the winter months. Diet diversity was significantly lower in winter compared to the other seasons, suggesting that the deer were bulk foraging on a widely available, predictable resource to conserve energy during winter. Grasses did not form a major component of the diet in any season. The preference analysis showed that spatially clustered woody taxa (e.g. Betula sp., Corylus sp. and Fraxinus sp.) occurred less often than expected in the diet, while widespread woody species occurred in the diet more often than expected (e.g. Rosa sp., Prunus sp. and Quercus sp.). Practical implication: The expansion of deer populations in the United Kingdom has occurred alongside the recovery and maturation of degraded or planted forests since the middle of the 20th century. Despite reduced light availability in these closed‐canopy forests and increased herbivory pressure, bramble has remained a dominant understory plant compared to other less herbivory‐tolerant plant species. Perhaps as a consequence, bramble has become the winter survival resource for this fallow deer population, remaining a prominent dietary component throughout the year. With increasing disturbance from extreme weather and tree diseases leading to a more open canopy structure, bramble cover is set to increase in European forests, which could support further expansion of deer populations. As we work to expand tree cover and enhance forest resilience and biodiversity, we should seek to understand the dynamic interactions of increasing deer populations with rapidly changing treescapes
Acidity impacts on microbial diversity and litter decomposition for organic soils
No full textBackground:
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations have increased in soil solutions and surface waters over the past 30 years in acid sensitive areas of Europe and Northern America. This has been linked to recovery from acidification of soils with decreasing levels of atmospheric pollution. Whilst previous research has found pH related DOC solubility is a likely driver of increased DOC concentrations in surface waters, it is unclear whether increased DOC production from organic matter decomposition, due to more favourable pH conditions for biological activity, has also contributed to the rising
trends in surface waters.
Aim:
We investigated how acidity impacts microbial communities, the decomposition of litter types common to acid-sensitive ecosystems, and the impact on DOC production.
Methods:
A decomposition study using litter bags and the Tea Bag Index was incorporated into an established acidity manipulation field experiment across two sites with contrasting acid deposition histories, and two characteristic soil types (peats and peaty podzols).
Results:
We found higher rates of litter decomposition in podzol soil than peat leading to higher DOC production and aromaticity, as indicated by absorbance properties. Acidity manipulations did not influence decomposition rates for most litter types, DOC production for any litter type, Tea Bag Index parameters (stabilisation factor and decomposition rate) or microbial diversity, for any site or soil type.
Conclusion:
Our study suggests that decomposition of aboveground-collected litter does not mediate acidity effects on DOC production, whilst soil type, and physiochemical soil
responses to acidity, are more influential on DOC release from organic soils
Multidisciplinary approach for reconstructing past local land-use practices: two case studies from the Ligurian Apennines, north-western Italy
Get PDFCharacterising local pastoral activities and multiple management systems that shaped past and present landscapes is critical for better understanding main historical processes of biodiversification, species distributions and biomass. The aim of the present paper is to add new information on previous studies by combining biostratigraphical proxies (pollen, charcoal and non-pollen palynomorphs) with data from written historical records (cartographic and archival) and archaeological excavations for the last centuries from two sites located in the eastern Ligurian Apennines, north-western Italy. Additionally, a statistical approach was used to calculate the relative importance of temperature variations, fire dynamics, changes in arboreal coverage, presence of stagnant water/temporary pools and grazing pressure on selected groups of pollen taxa associated with different management practices for the specific study area. The use of a multiple analytical methodology allowed highlighting several phases of land-use, which could be related to different socio-economic strategies sometime associated to historical conflicts between local communities. Our analyses identified indicator species of the past presence of cultivated fields, meadows, grazing areas and use of controlled fires, as well as heathlands and wetlands managed for pasture and agriculture, and provided evidences of the disappearance of landscapes more ‘complex’ than today, due to the abandonment of past management practices. These results have relevance for improving the ability to manage ecosystems during current and future environmental changes
Climate effects in environmental impact assessment
Get PDFThis article analyzes the application of environmental impact assessment as a tool for climate change mitigation from a global comparative perspective. It firstly confirms that, despite persistent resistance in a few jurisdictions, climate effect assessment is now widely applied on a global scale. Yet the article also shows that this practice has faced recurrent practical and conceptual issues, in particular, concerning the determination of the significance of a project’s climate effect and the assessment of indirect effects. Lastly, this article assesses how states have addressed these issues and identifies good practices. In doing so, the article illustrates the potential of functionalist comparative analysis in advancing our understanding of climate law and suggesting policy-relevant conclusions
Multi-stage multimodal fusion network with language models and uncertainty evaluation for early risk stratification in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases
Get PDFPrecise risk stratification of rheumatic musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) is crucial for ensuring patients get right referrals and treatments quickly. However, it is challenging due to the non-specific symptoms and the lack of the diagnostically definitive single biomarker. The real-world referral data present several challenges such as the free format texts and incomplete data challenges, which introduces further modeling complexity, and makes uncertainty quantification crucial for ensuring reliable predictions and outcomes. To solve these challenges, we developed a multi-stage multimodal fusion network with conformal prediction method that can accurately risk stratify RMDs at the point of referrals, quantify the uncertainty and flag unreliable predictions for physician's interventions. The proposed models were trained and evaluated using referral data from 128 General Practices (GPs) in the UK, which include patients who visited and were referred by GPs with suspected inflammatory conditions in RMDs between February 2018 and January 2024. Our model achieved 0.73 accuracy, 0.79 AUC, and 0.75 G-Mean to differentiate inflammatory conditions (IC) and non-inflammatory conditions (NIC) using patients’ presenting condition description (PCD) and medical history (MH) data, and 0.90 accuracy, 0.92 AUC, and 0.89 G-Mean using patients’ PCD, MH and additional blood test data (BTD). Furthermore, conformal prediction-based method has been developed to evaluate prediction uncertainty and can further identify 75.71% unreliable predictions for patients with PCD and MH data, and 66.67% unreliable predictions for patients with additional BTD data, which could be given a second-round examination by GP/secondary care clinicians for patient safety. The findings of this study suggest that language models with multi-stage multimodal fusion and uncertainty evaluation can risk stratify RMDs accurately using data available at the point of referral in the real world. Therefore, it is possible to be used by GPs and clinicians to help patients get the right treatment faster, demonstrating practical potential to improve RMDs referrals in the real world
High dose fish oil supplements are more effective than oily fish in altering the number and function of extracellular vesicles in healthy human subjects: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel trial
Get PDFBackground: N-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFAs) delivered by fish oil supplements alter the number and functions of circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs), but consumption of oily fish does not reproduce this effect.
Objective: To assess the effects of fish oil supplements and oily fish, at a level achievable in the diet, on EV numbers, composition and procoagulant activity in healthy human volunteers.
Methods: Forty-two healthy subjects were assigned to one of three treatment groups: (i) fish oil supplements plus white fish meals, (ii) control supplements plus oily fish meals or (iii) control supplements plus white fish meals for 12 weeks in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel trial. Circulating EVs were enumerated and their procoagulant activity assessed using thrombin generation and fibrinolysis assays.
Results: Fish oil supplements decreased circulating EV numbers and reduced EV-stimulated thrombin generation, but the consumption of oily fish at half the dose of EPA had no effect on either EV number or thrombogenic capacity. Consumption of both oily fish and fish oil supplements increased the EPA and DHA contents of EVs and the proportion of EPA in circulating EVs was strongly associated with EV-stimulated thrombin generation.
Conclusions: The additional 1 g/d EPA delivered in the fish oil supplements is required to decrease the numbers and thrombogenic capacity of EVs, since oily fish at a level achievable in the diet had no effect. Increasing EPA intake beyond current guidelines for oily fish consumption may therefore be required for cardiovascular benefits relating to EVs
Contemporary responses in Africa to the aftermath of death: developments and decolonising challenges
Get PDFDominated by scholars and empirical material from Europe, North America, New Zealand and Australia, death and bereavement studies have often assumed the universality of their knowledge. This limits the epistemic and ontological potential of the field and can result in limiting understanding of death and its aftermath ‘elsewhere’. Further, because of the political and economic power of these centres for the study of death, it has also resulted in the imposition of Western knowledges and practices about death on populations in Africa through colonial rule and neo-colonial aid, development initiatives, and global health policies. We advocate for the decolonisation of death and ‘bereavement’ studies by which we do not mean a return to a pre-colonial past, but instead the embracing of a plurality of epistemologies and ontologies about death and its aftermath, and a recognition of the power embedded in all claims about the meaning and processes of death in the continuing lives of the living. We explore these themes through a focus on three case studies in Senegal, South Sudan and Uganda
Subtropical jet regulates Arabian winter precipitation: a viable mechanism
Get PDFThe present study explores the mechanism governing wintertime (Nov – Apr) precipitation over the Arabian Peninsula (AP) using a 17-year-long (2002 – 2018) high-resolution WRF simulation. The composite analysis of strong precipitation events suggests that the equatorward extension of upper-level jet together with the embedded upper-level trough creates a positive (cyclonic) middle-level vorticity and subsequently generates an anomalous lower-level convergence through Ekman pumping. This leads to the development of an anomalous surface low, which is further enhanced in presence of the existing Red Sea trough over the AP. This surface low weakens the persistent anticyclone over the AP, shifting it further eastward to the Arabian Sea. The eastward shift in the lower-level anticyclone contributes to the transport of warm moist air from the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea towards the AP. This warm moist air converges with the cold and dry air advected by the mid-latitude jet and creates a moisture convergence zone, leading to the initiation of convection. We test the proposed mechanism through numerical experiments with modified upperlevel wind and demonstrate that a strong, southward intrusion of jet can indeed lead to precipitation over the AP. The above mechanism also explains the interannual variability of precipitation over the AP. During wet years, we notice approximately 3 ms−1 stronger jet core magnitude and about a 2° equatorward shift of the jet compared to dry years. While the equatorward extension of the jet explains about 21% of the interannual variability, the jet magnitude explains around 7% of the variability during wet years
Advancing organized convection representation in the unified model: implementing and enhancing multiscale coherent structure parameterization
Get PDFTo address the effect of stratiform latent heating on meso- to large scale circulations, an enhanced implementation of the Multiscale Coherent Structure Parameterization (MCSP) is developed for the Met Office Unified Model. MCSP represents the top-heavy stratiform latent heating from under-resolved organized convection in general circulation models. We couple the MCSP with a mass-flux convection scheme (CoMorph-A) to improve storm lifecycle continuity. The improved MCSP trigger is specifically designed for mixed-phase deep convective cloud, combined with a background vertical wind shear, both known to be crucial for stratiform development. We also test a cloud top temperature dependent convective-stratiform heating partitioning, in contrast to the earlier fixed partitioning. Assessments from ensemble weather forecasts and decadal simulations demonstrate that MCSP directly reduces cloud deepening and precipitation areas by moderating mesoscale circulations. Indirectly, it amends tropical precipitation biases, notably correcting dry and wet biases over India and the Indian Ocean, respectively. Remarkably, the scheme outperforms a climate model ensemble by improving seasonal precipitation cycle predictions in these regions. The scheme also improves Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) spectra, achieving better alignment with observational and reanalysis data by intensifying the simulated MJO over the Indian Ocean during phases 4 to 5. However, the scheme increases precipitation overestimation over the Western Pacific. Shifting from fixed to temperature-dependent convective-stratiform partitioning reduces the Pacific precipitation overestimation and further improves the seasonal cycle in India. Spatially correlated biases highlight the necessity for advances beyond deterministic approaches to align MCSP with environmental conditions